In the traditional television paradigm, programming content is sent as an analog or digital signal to a viewer's television set via cable, satellite or through the air. The signals are then received, processed and displayed for the viewer to watch on the screen of the television set.
However, with the exoteric spread of portable electronic devices, such as laptop computers, viewers no longer wish to be restricted to watching television via a conventional television set which is, more or less, confined to use in one physical location. Given the desire or need for portability, and the ubiquitous presence of Internet-based technologies within modern computing equipment, the ability to receive IPTV services via computing equipment is becoming increasingly important from both a consumer's (i.e. viewer's) perspective and from the perspective of the service providers who seek to commercialize the opportunities.
Thus, the monopoly of the traditional television paradigm is being eroded and challenged by the development of Internet Television (Internet TV) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) technologies.
Internet TV enables a user to select programs from a list and is typically delivered over an IP network in the form of streaming video via a website. The content is embedded into a web page, and accompanying text is typically wrapped around the streaming video which is presented to the viewer within a separate window. In some ways, this presentation style is similar to a newspaper page wherein surrounding text flows around, not over the image, albeit that the static image is replaced by a video component.
By contrast, a typical IPTV system enables delivery of a digital television service to a viewer over a closed network infrastructure. The delivery is performed using Internet Protocol and typically includes a broadband connection. The IPTV system receives and displays the video stream, which has been encoded as a series of Internet Protocol (data) packets. IPTV can be in the form of live TV, but also as stored video—sometimes known as ‘video on demand’ (VOD).
Traditionally, the viewer must use a device known as a set-top box (STB) in conjunction with his/her television set in order to receive and view IPTV. The set top box acts as an interface between the television and the network, decoding the incoming video streaming media, converting it into standard television signals and providing two-way communications over the IP network. It also performs functional processing, such as setting up the connection and quality of service (QoS) with the service node, channel change functionality and user display control. This functionality is achieved via the use of software known as ‘middleware’.
‘Middleware’ is a key component within the IPTV solutions architecture. It is the application software layer that acts as an interface between the user interface and the hardware/operating system (OS) of the STB. Middleware vendors adopt abstraction based strategies to isolate themselves from the underlying hardware.
However, service providers can find it challenging to make the IPTV business model commercially viable due to the (often relatively high) cost of STBs. This is compounded by the linear nature of the cost/functionality line of STBs—the more features or functions the STB is required to posses, the higher the cost of the device. This has prompted IPTV service providers to investigate the possibilities of delivering their services to mass market end user devices (such as personal computers) where the cost of the hardware has already been borne by the end user/viewer. Thus, if standard computing components can be used to mirror and mimic their televisual counterparts (e.g. monitor, CPU, disk used to replace TV, STB, VCR respectively) then functionality can be maintained while eliminating the cost and inconvenience of a required STB.
FIG. 1 illustrates how, in a traditional IPTV architecture 100 including a physical STB 120, IPTV content is delivered to a viewer's television set 121 such that the presentation style of the IPTV content is the same as that experienced by the viewer when using a non-IPTV based delivery system (e.g., TV broadcasts over the air). As FIG. 1 shows, signals are transmitted from the service provider over a network, and are forwarded by a router to the viewer's STB. The STB, which is connected to the viewer's television set, processes the signals such that the content can be displayed on the television screen in a style and format identical to that experienced in the more ‘traditional’ television broadcasting paradigms.